Contents

The bank was formed on 1 January 1970 as the Berliner Handels- und Frankfurter Bank from the merger of the Frankfurter Bank (founded in 1854) and the Berliner Handels-Gesellschaft (founded in 1856).[1] In 1970, when the BHF-Bank tower was built by the German architect Sep Ruf, it was the highest building in Frankfurt. The banks changed its name to BHF-Bank in 1975. Through the 1970s and 1980s it was in the top three to five investment banks in West Germany and had a top position in the foreign exchange market. The bank had extensive industrial holdings. Its former senior partner, Hanns Schroeder-Hohenwarth, became the President of the German Banks Association from 1983 to 1987.

In 1995 the bank went public, changing from a partnership to a corporation. From 1999 to 2004 it was bought by the Dutch ING Group and renamed from 2002 ING BHF-Bank. In the same year it was delisted following the squeeze out of remaining share holders.

In 2004 ING BHF-Bank was split. The majority of the bank’s business operations, offices and equity shareholdings were integrated into the newly founded BHF-BANK Aktiengesellschaft, which was then acquired by the private bank Sal. Oppenheim as its sole shareholder. When Sal. Oppenheim was taken over by Deutsche Bank in 2010, BHF-BANK, which has always operated on a stand-alone basis, was put up for sale.

In 2014, the bank has formed part of BHF Kleinwort Benson Group, which was taken over by the French private bank Oddo et Cie. By mid-March 2016, Oddo et Cie had acquired 100% of BHF Kleinwort Benson Group’s shares, and has thus become BHF-BANK’s indirect sole shareholder. In April 2017, the company was renamed ODDO BHF Aktiengesellschaft.

The non-profit BHF BANK Foundation was set up in 1999 . The foundation supports initiatives that generate forward-thinking and groundbreaking ideas for life in German society. The BHF BANK Foundation concentrates on two areas: social and scientific projects with a socio-political background, and the contemporary arts and upcoming artists.

1.
Aktiengesellschaft
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Aktiengesellschaft is a German word for a corporation limited by share ownership and may be traded on a stock market. The term is used in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol and it is also used in Luxembourg, though the French-language equivalent, Société Anonyme, is more common. An English translation can therefore be share corporation, in German the use of the term Aktien for shares is restricted to Aktiengesellschaften. Shares in other types of German companies are called Anteile rather than Aktien, in Germany and Austria, the legal basis of the AG is the German Aktiengesetz or the Austrian Aktiengesetz. In Switzerland, the Company Limited by Shares is defined in Title Twenty-Six of the Code of Obligations, article 950 specifies that the business name must indicate the legal form. German AGs have a two-tiered board structure, consisting of a supervisory board, the supervisory board is generally controlled by shareholders, although employees may have seats, depending on the size of the company. The management board directly runs the company, but its members may be removed by the supervisory board, some German AGs have management boards which determine their own remuneration, but that situation is now relatively uncommon. The general meeting is the governing body of a Swiss company limited by shares. It elects the board of directors and the external auditors, the board of directors may appoint and dismiss persons entrusted with managing and representing the company. Chapter 4, The History of Corporate Ownership and Control in Germany, a History of Corporate Governance around the World, Family Business Groups to Professional Managers. Ownership and Control of German Corporations

2.
Frankfurt
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The city is at the centre of the larger Frankfurt Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region, which has a population of 5.8 million and is Germanys second-largest metropolitan region after Rhine-Ruhr. Since the enlargement of the European Union in 2013, the centre of the EU is about 40 km to the east of Frankfurts CBD. Frankfurt is culturally and ethnically diverse, with half of the population. A quarter of the population are foreign nationals, including many expatriates, Frankfurt is an alpha world city and a global hub for commerce, culture, education, tourism and traffic. Its the site of many global and European headquarters, Frankfurt Airport is among the worlds busiest. Automotive, technology and research, services, consulting, media, Frankfurts DE-CIX is the worlds largest internet exchange point. Messe Frankfurt is one of the worlds largest trade fairs, major fairs include the Frankfurt Motor Show, the worlds largest motor show, the Music Fair, and the Frankfurt Book Fair, the worlds largest book fair. Frankfurt is home to educational institutions, including the Goethe University, the UAS, the FUMPA. Its renowned cultural venues include the concert hall Alte Oper, Europes largest English Theatre and many museums, Frankfurts skyline is shaped by some of Europes tallest skyscrapers. In sports, the city is known as the home of the top football club Eintracht Frankfurt, the basketball club Frankfurt Skyliners, the Frankfurt Marathon. Its the seat of German sport unions for Olympics, football, Frankfurt is the largest financial centre in continental Europe. It is home to the European Central Bank, Deutsche Bundesbank, Frankfurt Stock Exchange, the Frankfurt Stock Exchange is one of the worlds largest stock exchanges by market capitalization and accounts for more than 90 percent of the turnover in the German market. Frankfurt is considered a city as listed by the GaWC groups 2012 inventory. Among global cities it was ranked 10th by the Global Power City Index 2011, among financial centres it was ranked 8th by the International Financial Centers Development Index 2013 and 9th by the Global Financial Centres Index 2013. Its central location within Germany and Europe makes Frankfurt a major air, rail, Frankfurt Airport is one of the worlds busiest international airports by passenger traffic and the main hub for Germanys flag carrier Lufthansa. Frankfurter Kreuz, the Autobahn interchange close to the airport, is the most heavily used interchange in the EU, in 2011 human-resource-consulting firm Mercer ranked Frankfurt as seventh in its annual Quality of Living survey of cities around the world. According to The Economist cost-of-living survey, Frankfurt is Germanys most expensive city, Frankfurt has many high-rise buildings in the city centre, forming the Frankfurt skyline. It is one of the few cities in the European Union to have such a skyline and because of it Germans sometimes refer to Frankfurt as Mainhattan, the other well known and obvious nickname is Bankfurt

3.
Germany
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Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed

4.
BHF Bank
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BHF-Bank is a private German bank owned by Oddo & Cie. It was one of the leading German investment banks in the 1970s and 1980s, the bank has an international presence, with branches in Luxembourg, Switzerland, the UAE, Egypt and Vietnam. BHF-Bank was formed on 1 January 1970 as the Berliner Handels- und Frankfurter Bank from the merger of the Frankfurter Bank, in 1970, when the BHF-Bank tower was built by the German architect Sep Ruf, it was the highest building in Frankfurt. The banks changed its name to BHF-Bank in 1975, through the 1970s and 1980s it was in the top three to five investment banks in West Germany and had a top position in the foreign exchange market. The bank had extensive industrial holdings and its former senior partner, Hanns Schroeder-Hohenwarth, became the President of the German Banks Association from 1983 to 1987. In 1995 the bank went public, changing from a partnership to a corporation, from 1999 to 2004 it was bought by the Dutch ING Group and renamed from 2002 ING BHF-Bank. In the same year it was delisted following the squeeze out of remaining share holders, in 2004 ING BHF-Bank was split. The majority of the business operations, offices and equity shareholdings were integrated into the newly founded BHF-BANK Aktiengesellschaft. Oppenheim was taken over by Deutsche Bank in 2010, BHF-BANK, since 2014, the bank has formed part of BHF Kleinwort Benson Group, which was taken over by the French private bank Oddo & Cie. By mid-March 2016, Oddo & Cie had acquired 100% of BHF Kleinwort Benson Group’s shares, BHF-BANK Foundation was set up in 1999 to improve Germany society. It has supported the Senckenberg Museum in acquiring new exhibits and the Frankfurt Red Cross with emergency rescue equipment

5.
Sep Ruf
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Sep Ruf was a German architect and designer, belonging to the Bauhaus group. He was one of the representatives of modern architecture in Germany after World War II and his elegant buildings received high credits in Germany and Europe and his German pavilion of the Expo 58 in Brussels, built together with Egon Eiermann, achieved worldwide recognition. His best known building was the residence for the Federal Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, built for Ludwig Erhard and his father was Josef Ruf and his mother was Wilhelmine Mina Ruf. The family of his father came from Dinkelsbühl and his mothers family lived in Weißenburg in Bayern and he had a brother Franz Ruf born 1909. His first years at school he spent in a school in Munich. Until his years of study he went to the Luitpold-Oberrealschule and he loved skiing and climbing in the mountains, during this time he met his later fiancée, Aloisia Ruf, née Mayer, born in Munich,2 April 1910, a daughter of a factory owner. They married 1938, built a home in Gmund am Tegernsee and had two children, Ruf loved to travel and he visited Austria, Italy, Greece, France, Belgium, Switzerland, the United States and Norway. 1969 he bought a winery in Italy and renovated the house and he became friend with many artists like Marino Marini and Bruno Pulga and had guests in Italy such as Henry Moore. He also kept in touch with Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Richard Neutra and he is called to be the German architect, who realized the ideas of the Bauhaus most consequent. In 1982 he died in Munich and was buried at the cemetery of Gmund am Tegernsee. He studied architecture and city planning at the Technical University Munich from 1926 until 1931, then he opened his own bureau. One year later his brother spent a year in his bureau before he opened his own, Ruf began to build houses for doctors, actors and manufacturers and they loved his light and bright buildings. He continued building houses and now he had to them with pitched roofs. From 1936-1938 he was ordered to build parts of the Werdenfels, as soon as possible he went back to the building of private houses. In 1939 Ruf had to go to war, from 1940 to 1942 he was allowed to stay at home because he worked as an independent architect with the family of Hugo Junkers. From 1934 to 1936, one year before his death, Junkers had allowed the 26-year-old architect to build an estate for his workers in Grünwald, Bavaria. Hugo Junkers, who had lost nearly all of his inventions and his factory in Dessau to the new authorities and now lived near Munich under surveillance, now did research for metal-housing. In 1942 Ruf had to go to the Russian front and after the war had ended, he went back to Germany by foot, the tower-building of the HICOG went to be the Embassy of the United States in Bonn from 1955 until 1999

6.
West Germany
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West Germany is the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation on 23 May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990. During this Cold War era, NATO-aligned West Germany and Warsaw Pact-aligned East Germany were divided by the Inner German border, after 1961 West Berlin was physically separated from East Berlin as well as from East Germany by the Berlin Wall. This situation ended when East Germany was dissolved and its five states joined the ten states of the Federal Republic of Germany along with the reunified city-state of Berlin. With the reunification of West and East Germany, the Federal Republic of Germany, enlarged now to sixteen states and this period is referred to as the Bonn Republic by historians, alluding to the interwar Weimar Republic and the post-reunification Berlin Republic. The Federal Republic of Germany was established from eleven states formed in the three Allied Zones of occupation held by the United States, the United Kingdom and France, US and British forces remained in the country throughout the Cold War. Its population grew from roughly 51 million in 1950 to more than 63 million in 1990, the city of Bonn was its de facto capital city. The fourth Allied occupation zone was held by the Soviet Union, as a result, West Germany had a territory about half the size of the interbellum democratic Weimar Republic. At the onset of the Cold War, Europe was divided among the Western and Eastern blocs, Germany was de facto divided into two countries and two special territories, the Saarland and divided Berlin. The Federal Republic of Germany claimed a mandate for all of Germany. It took the line that the GDR was an illegally constituted puppet state, though the GDR did hold regular elections, these were not free and fair. For all practical purposes the GDR was a Soviet puppet state, from the West German perspective the GDR was therefore illegitimate. Three southwestern states of West Germany merged to form Baden-Württemberg in 1952, in addition to the resulting ten states, West Berlin was considered an unofficial de facto 11th state. It recognised the GDR as a de facto government within a single German nation that in turn was represented de jure by the West German state alone. From 1973 onward, East Germany recognised the existence of two German countries de jure, and the West as both de facto and de jure foreign country, the Federal Republic and the GDR agreed that neither of them could speak in the name of the other. The first chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who remained in office until 1963, had worked for an alignment with NATO rather than neutrality. He not only secured a membership in NATO but was also a proponent of agreements that developed into the present-day European Union, when the G6 was established in 1975, there was no question whether the Federal Republic of Germany would be a member as well. With the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989, symbolised by the opening of the Berlin Wall, East Germany voted to dissolve itself and accede to the Federal Republic in 1990. Its five post-war states were reconstituted along with the reunited Berlin and they formally joined the Federal Republic on 3 October 1990, raising the number of states from 10 to 16, ending the division of Germany

7.
Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien
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The GPs are, in all major respects, in the same legal position as partners in a conventional firm, i. e. Like shareholders in a corporation, limited partners have limited liability and this means that the limited partners have no management authority, and are not liable for the debts of the partnership. The limited partnership provides the limited partners a return on their investment, General Partners thus bear more economic risk than do limited partners, and in cases of financial loss, the GPs will be the ones which are personally liable. Limited partners are subject to the same alter-ego piercing theories as corporate shareholders, however, it is more difficult to pierce the limited partnership veil because limited partnerships do not have many formalities to maintain. So long as the partnership and the members do not co-mingle funds, Partnership interests are afforded a significant level of protection through the charging order mechanism. The charging order limits the creditor of a debtor-partner or a debtor-member to the share of distributions. When the partnership is being constituted, or the composition of the firm is changing, Limited partners must explicitly disclose their status when dealing with other parties, so that such parties are on notice that the individual negotiating with them carries limited liability. Limited partnerships are distinct from limited liability partnerships, in which all partners have limited liability, in some jurisdictions, the limited liability of the limited partners is contingent on their not participating in management. The societates publicanorum, which arose in Rome in the third century BC, during the heyday of the Roman Empire, they were roughly equivalent to todays corporations. Some had many investors, and interests were publicly tradable, however, they required at least one partners with unlimited liability. According to Jairus Banaji, the Qirad and Mudaraba institutions in Islamic law, in medieval Italy, a business organization known as the commenda appeared in the 10th century that was generally used for financing maritime trade. In a commenda, the trader of the ship had limited liability. In contrast, his investment partners on land had unlimited liability and were exposed to risk, a commenda was not a common form for a long-term business venture as most long-term businesses were still expected to be secured against the assets of their individual proprietors. As an institution, the commenda is very similar to the qirad but whether the qirad transformed into the commenda, colberts Ordinance and the Napoleonic Code reinforced the limited partnership concept in European law. In the United States, limited partnerships became available in the early 19th century. Britain enacted its first limited partnership statute in 1907, for a list of types of corporation and other business types by country, see Types of business entity. They are also useful in labor-capital partnerships, where one or more financial backers prefer to contribute money or resources while the other partner performs the actual work, in such situations, liability is the driving concern behind the choice of limited partnership status. The limited partnership is also attractive to firms wishing to provide shares to individuals without the additional tax liability of a corporation

8.
ING Group
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The ING Group is a Dutch multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Amsterdam. Its primary businesses are retail banking, direct banking, commercial banking, investment banking, asset management, ING is an abbreviation for Internationale Nederlanden Groep. The orange lion on INGs logo alludes to the Groups Dutch origins under the House of Orange-Nassau, ING is the Dutch member of the Inter-Alpha Group of Banks, a cooperative consortium of 11 prominent European banks. ING Bank was included in a list of global systemically important banks in 2012, as of 2013, ING served over 48 million individual and institutional clients in more than 40 countries, with a worldwide workforce exceeding 75,000. The company is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index, ING Group traces its roots to two major insurance companies in the Netherlands and the banking services of the Dutch government. It later changed its name to De Nederlanden van 1845, two decades later in 1863 the life insurance company Nationale Levensverzekerings Bank was founded in Rotterdam. These two insurance companies would make multiple acquisitions before merging to form the combined company the Nationale-Nederlanden in 1963. The combined insurance company would expand significantly during the 1970s and 1980s, in 1881, the Dutch government created the Rijkspostspaarbank, a postal savings system to encourage workers to start saving. Four decades later they added the Postcheque and Girodienst services allowing working families to make payments via post offices, separately in 1927, the Dutch government initiated a re-organisation of Dutch banks which resulted in the creation of the Nederlandsche Middenstands Bank. NMBs focus was retail banking in the Netherlands and abroad, in 1986, post office banking services were privatised as Postbank N. V. and three years later it would merge with NMB bank to form NMB Postbank Groep. It also acquired Frankfurt based BHF-Bank in 1999, although disposed of this later and it increased its Latin American and Asia Pacifics insurance businesses with the acquisition of ReliaStar and Aetnas Financial Services unit. It also acquired the Polish Bank Śląski and Mexican insurance company Seguros Comercial América, however, it was the 1995 purchase of Barings Bank after its dramatic failure that saw ING Groups investment banking business boosted significantly. The first of these was set up in Canada in 1997, the no frills, high rate savings accounts that could only be accessed online were a successful venture and spawned a number of similar services from rival banks. In 2008, as part of the financial crisis ING Group, together with all other major banks in the Netherlands. This support increased INGs capital ratio above 8%, however as a condition of Dutch state aid and this included the sale of the ING Direct US operations to Capital One and the ING Direct UK operations to Barclays bank in 2012. The spun-off insurance businesses in North America were renamed Voya Financial in 2014, in November 2003, ING Groep N. V. appointed Michel Tilmant, Vice-Chairman of the executive board, as its new chairman and successor to Ewald Kist. ING has offices in, Due to the separation of ING Group into ING Bank and ING Insurance, ING House was the head office of NN Group and located in the business district of Zuidas in Amsterdam, Netherlands from 2012 to 2014. It was designed by Roberto Meyer and Jeroen van Schooten and was opened on 16 September 2002 by then Prince Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands

9.
Squeeze out
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This technique allows one or more shareholders who collectively hold a majority of shares in a corporation to gain ownership of remaining shares in that corporation. The majority shareholders incorporate a second corporation, which initiates a merger with the original corporation, the shareholders using this technique are then in a position to dictate the plan of merger. They force the minority stockholders in the corporation to accept a cash payment for their shares. Although a LBO is an tool for a group of investors to use to purchase a company. To complete freeze-out merger, the company first creates a new corporation. The acquiring corporation then makes an offer at an amount slightly higher than the current target corporation stock price. If the tender offer succeeds, the acquirer gains control of the target, in effect, the non-tendering shareholders lose their shares because the target corporation no longer exists. In compensation, non tendering shareholders get their right to receive the offer price for their shares. The bidder, in essence, gets complete ownership of the target for the offer price. Because the value the non-tendering shareholders receive for their shares is equal to the tender price, hence the acquirer is able to capture almost all the value added from the merger and, as in the leveraged buyout, is able to effectively eliminate the free rider problem. This freeze-out tender offer has a significant advantage over an LBO because an acquiring corporation need not make a tender offer. Instead, it can use shares of its own stock to pay for the acquisition, in this case, the bidder offers to exchange each shareholder’s stock in the target for stock in the acquiring company. The legal community has criticized the present rules with regard to freeze-out mergers as being biased against the interests of the minority shareholders, for example, if a gain in stock value is anticipated by the majority, they can deprive the frozen-out minority of its share of those gains. In Germany, a pool of shareholders owning at least 95% of a companys shares has the right to squeeze out the minority of shareholders by paying them an adequate compensation. This procedure is based on the Securities Acquisition and Takeover Act, an alternative procedure is governed by §§ 327a – 327f of the German Stock Corporation Act, valid since January 1,2002. For the first time in German history, this law provided a legal framework for takeovers. Although it has been asserted that the law does not break the German constitution it has courted the resentment of many investors who consider it to be the legalization of expropriation. Conditions required The criteria for a squeeze-out are set out in § 327a AktG and this decision must be taken at a meeting in this regard and provide a reasonable cash compensation for minority shareholders

10.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker